Salman Rushdie @ Bozar
Going out
Written by BrusselsLife Team -
14 Oct 2012, 00:00
(Updated: 10 Mar 2022, 16:59)
Cast your mind back. In 1989 Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses was judged to be blasphemous by the Supreme Leader of Iran, and the author was hit with a fatwa.
A British citizen born in India, Rushdie was a major figure in contemporary Western literature, who was immersed in the world of the East and who sang the praises of its beauty and paradoxes. Despite which, he now found himself forced to live in hiding. Those years of forced reclusion are at the heart of the memoirs now published by Random House under the enigmatic title of Joseph Anton: A Memoir. Once one becomes aware of Rushdie's admiration for Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov, the mystery behind the title evaporates. The idea for the juxtaposition of the two names came to him when it was suggested that he should use a pseudonym because of the death threat hanging over him.
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